"We do need more discoveries, because the disease has not been cured, " says Yancy.
Mr. GORDON YANCY: You've got that whirr, whirr, whirr, that shh, shh, shh, shh.
Yancy said the clean safety results should be "reassuring" for researchers as they test Natrecor in other areas.
Clyde Yancy, a cardiologist at the Baylor College of Medicine, says the subgroups themselves are a difficult call.
Two other doctors who discussed Yancy's presentation questioned whether the study was big enough to really allay safety worries.
"I was intrigued but not convinced, " says Clyde Yancy, director of the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute in Dallas.
In an interview Yancy said the results show that current care can help heart failure patients, even though there is a need for new drugs.
"The good news is that we can make patients feel and do better, " says Clyde Yancy, medical director of the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute.
Mr. YANCY: What they've done here is completely desecrated this region.
"Even those patients in whom we think it's futile to change medical therapy, we can improve their outcomes and improve their quality of life, " says Yancy.
According to Yancy, who wrote an editorial on this topic published alongside the study, family history plays a major role because hypertension tends to run in families.
CNN: Study: Blacks suffer heart failure at alarmingly high rates
Clyde Yancy, medical director of the heart and vascular institute at the Baylor College of Medicine, and another FDA panelist, notes that with drugs, so-called off-label use is often a scandal.
But Gordon Yancy says they're intolerable, especially at night.
Speculating as to why FUSION II did not confirm the benefit of the previous FUSION I study, Yancy noted that the patients in the new trial were actually much better cared for.
Yancy underscores the life-threatening significance of these findings.
CNN: Study: Blacks suffer heart failure at alarmingly high rates
In an interview, Yancy said that although the study is not enough to give Natrecor a complete stamp of approval, he thinks the study was well designed to pick up a signal of kidney side effects.
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